Friday, January 9, 2015

Maybelline The Brights Palette Has Landed (Plus: Reader Swatches of The Brights and The Smokes Palettes)

Very exciting news to share with you today! If you'll recall, back in July of 2014 I posted about the three new Maybelline Palettes: The Nudes (which I reviewed for you HERE), The Smokes (which has been available for a few months now--I'll be showing you some reader swatches in a moment) and The Brights, which hasn't yet been spotted in stores. Well that has just changed!

image credit: Elizabeth for Nouveau Cheap

Maybelline Expert Wear The Brights Eyeshadow Palette

(retail: $9.99 at Target, 0.34 oz)

Many thanks to reader Elizabeth (@lizzie87120 on Instagram, who just spotted the Maybelline The Brights Palette at her local Target! Elizabeth kindly shared the pic above, and also some swatches of this palette with us.

Keep reading for reader swatches of The Brights and The Smokes palettes...

Elizabeth shared some quick swatches of The Brights palette above (no primer) and mentioned that the only shade that wasn't very pigmented was the purple (drugstore purple shadows often seem to be finicky, right?). Again, these were swatched without primer, so they could become more intense over primer (as is the case with The Nudes palette I reviewed HERE).

It seems like these palettes are taking a bit of time to show up at the usual retailers, so you might have to wait a while for The Brights to pop up in your area (I know that some of you still haven't found The Smokes in your areas yet!). Hopefully you won't have to wait too long, and hopefully this one will be available on sites like Target and Ulta soon (I just checked, and only The Nudes is available on both the Ulta and Target sites as of the time of this post).

Speaking of The Smokes palette, I want to thank reader Candice for sharing with us pics and swatches of the Maybelline The Smokes palette, which has been available at Walgreens for a few months now. Take a look:

As far as the texture goes, very similar to The Nudes palette. I feel as though the pigmentation is better than The Nudes. It only has one struggle shade in my opinion and that is the matte pinky nude shade (last one in bottom row). All of the other mattes show up very well on my darker skin. In my opinion they show up better than the mattes from the nudes palette (that could also be because my skin closely matches the mattes in the nudes palette) I would consider myself a deep skin tone and the pinky shade I mentioned earlier shows up very very light and with multiple swatches. Not sure how it would show up on lighter skin tones though. Also the silver in this palette (2nd row, 3rd from left) is like the sister shade to the gold (same location) in The Nudes palette as far as intensity, feel, and pigmentation.

Thanks so much, Candice, for the great insights and information about The Smokes palette. I definitely can't wait to try this one now.

Have you spotted The Smokes or The Brights palettes (or both) in your area yet? Do you already own The Nudes? Think you'll get the other two when you find them? I'd love to hear from you! And once again, you can see my full review of The Nudes palette (with comparisons to some UD shades) here, if you'd like more info on that one.

Thanks so much, Elizabeth, for the great sighting and swatches of The Brights! And thanks again to Candice for the mini-review of the The Smokes!

15 comments

I have yet to try any of these palettes. I really like the colors in the brights. Ever since I'd gotten addicted to Wet n' Wild shadows no one else in the drugstore brands compare. I might give these a try though and branch out of my brand rut.

Still haven't seen the Smokes in any store.. nor have found an online source for it. Most of my local stores either don't have the Nudes or have had empty displays for months. By the time they get their act together nobody will care, lol.

I really disliked the Nudes palette because the pigmentation just wasn't there. I'm hoping the L'Oréal La Palette will be better! I'm not sure I'll get either one of these based on my experience with the Nudes palette, unfortunately. Such a shame because they look pretty!

I have theNudes palette and I love it. I use it with my MBA Cosmetics primer and it is great so I want to add theSmokes and theBrights to my collection but haven't found either in my area but I am looking.